Mello is gone. The role to finish L's work is left to Near. With the white kid's negligence and almost scary brain it can't be a problem, unless... there is something what is hid under Near's cold mask.
Camouflage
"Near..." quite knock on the door. Well, that wasn't necessary, but he thought that avoiding the unexpected sights, especially in this part of the building, where the elder boys (horny and moody teenagers) live, counting with him, with his pal and this weird creature, he found better to sign somehow his sudden appearance for the apartment's host. He waited a little, then he entered to the room. However he didn't get anything as an answer, he was exactly aware of that the other heard the knock.
The chamber's view didn't suprise him at all. Althought he has never met with the guy before, after all, he has expected something like that according to the gossips in the corridor, and his imagination what was based on his friend's description about the boy. The space almost from floor to the ceiling was full of different kind of structures from different kind of materials. If he wouldn't aware of the boy's certain age, he couldn't guess him more than ten. His unaccountable attachment to the toys wasn't fit to his real age, not even to his amazing skills. But, he wasn't the only freak being in here, everybody has an oddness here, even him. And the ones who were significant, even there, well, they were inexplicable, just like this boy was.
"Near." he said the other's name again.
The boy not even looked up from his actual work, what seemed like a castle build from thousands of ivory, identical dices. He put some on the top slowly, then looked - only for a moment - for his guest.
"Yes, Matt?" he asked commonly.
He hesitated for a little, but after that he sounded his question why he had came here.
"I haven't seen Mello for days. Did he contact with you?" he asked. The white haired youth looked at him, again for only a quick check and continued then stiffely the work on his masterpiece.
"I am not apprised of his certain location, if you wonder that." he said with a cold tone in his voice and changed the leg what he was always keeping tucked. "He is gone."
"Where?"
"I thought as you are enough smart to concentrate longer than one voiced sentence. I knew as, you two are on equal level, but you make me be disappointed." he murmured and tilted his chin to his lifted knee.
The striped topped juvenile didn't know suddenly how to react, he could have never picture that Near could be this jerk, it didn't fit to his fame. He could be shy, neutral and cheeky, but only on his childish behaviour. This was just- not him.
"Otherwise, I am not really interested in Mello's misdeeds anymore. Few days and I'll also go. Roger has already arranged the details. I have nothing to do with him any longer."
That was the worst script what Matt has calculated, but he wouldn't have told that will exactly happen. Like an awful nightmare with the fatal outcome. No, this couldn't happen. Mello has counted to him. Near couldn't be this insensible. Against their endless fights, they have mattered to each other. Behind their words and actions they have cared about the other. Mello had gone to find Near if he had late for his usual fights, and Near had been depressed for days as Mello occasionally had found something more interesting than their small wars. They were each other's rivals but this rivalry has faded their malformed friendship.
Hundred of dices collided suddenly together. The carefully executed building collapsed as his view of the previous scene. He didn't look to Near or took a sight to the element of the wasted masterpiece. He had already know that what he has just seen was not the truth. The towers made from Lego disappeared from the room and the material of the ground, changed, it creepely started to look like as his own champer's floor: full of laundry, garbage and his patchworks, like his color lentiled glass and other personal stuff. It took a minute for him to assemble the nuance details what had betrayed for him the real situation: Near had changed his leg - he never did; Near's room had been on the left side of the corridor - he knocked on the right; he had had three different material in his works - he had never more than one in the same time, the mixture of the toys distracted him, he has already made a rule from it.
The whole stuff was just a dream - or a hallucination. But why the hell his brain distorted the reality? Why did it do with him? He wouldn't have been dream about that, his imagination was too simple to it. Maybe he was awake, right here, right now, just his rational thoughts somehow couldn't manage to comprehend something from the real world, something like a never experienced sound or action, what couldn't be fit to the reality as the prior scene and to cheat his brain, he had fabricated this. This - what was for himself more acceptable than the reality itself.
He gazed to the space for a long minute and waited as the fake landscape collapsed with its every small parts and his consciousness came back in fine. The truth wasn't far from the happened illusion. He stood in front of Near's half closed door and his fist was on to knock. But then why he didn't take it yet? What was the things what make him to cheat on his senses? What was the incomprehensible point what he couldn't take, to rather create a vision of a cruel Near, what could be more realistic than the truth? What- Shit. That was it. That sound, what he has just heard outside of the door, like a soft snivelling. He carefully and slowly opened the door, without a note to his arrive.
"Near?" he asked warily and gingerly dodging the scattered piece of toys - check dominos - on the floor with his steps. What the hell happened here? - he took the question to himself suddenly as he saw the chaos in the whole room. Nothing was unharmed, none of the works was finished. Everything was destroyed - seemingly with purpose and in the middle of the mysterious explosion was a trembling albino dumpling.
Matt wonderingly took his hand one of the punished pieces, then he put it back to the floor. It can't be - he said to himself, but definitely that was the truth: the chaos in a tidy room, a total collapse against the common certainty, and the heartbreaking sobbing in the bed's corner shrink to the smallest living point against the known insensibility.
"Near?" he stepped to him closer, almost two feet away from him.
"Please, leave me alone." he begged with a faint voice, not looking up from his knees. With his hands, he squeezed hard a small robot, like a last handhold against the unknown enemy.
Matt slowly sat next to him.
"Please..." he whispered.
"I won't go." he said seriously, then took the question. "What happened here?" looked he around again on the whole forty square feet area. The whole place was a mess. Near was a complete mess.
"I just... I..." stuttered, but with a deep moaned, he continued differently, with his usual cool voice, but still hiding behind his thin legs. "If you came to here because of Mello, I don't know where he went, he didn't mention to me, he has just... gone..."
What a minute!
"I've already known what you wanna say, don't do it... please, just... leave me alone..." he said slightly in a faltering voice. "I can handle this on my own." he added and hiding his head more behind his turn up legs. Matt only this time noticed that he wasn't wearing his general bright pants, this was an ebony one. Again, the nuance deterring small details what didn't fit anyhow to the familiar existence… Was he dreaming again? Or still?
He leaned with his hand to the bed, pressed the mattress a little with his weight. It wasn't too strong to make scraping voice from the springs below, but enough to reveal an fairly stowed away spot on the bedding and the sight of a tucked clothes beside Near's shaking body.
"What's that?" grabbed he the bright material curiously. The other teared it out immediately from his fingers with a schrilling scream. Matt couldn't ever imagine that somebody could reach such a high pitch, he for the sudden suprise and shock, released the hiding clothes. As Near tucked it behind him, his brain managed to analyse the prior sight. It was just a moment, but he saw it, a similar dark spot on the fabric, just on the bedclothes what now, Near tried to hide with his lowered leg. The color of the bed linen was too obscure to make it obvious, but the boy's common narrowly white dyed pyjama made him realize the sight. That was blood. He freezed.
"Please, Mail, go away." he asked him, using his true surname, seemingly as a last sensitive impulse to begging to him, but Matt couldn't do that. Near's eyes were red and cried out and his face was puffy, he couldn't let to himself to left him with this - anything made with him it. The younger started to screwed his extremely short snow-white tuft of hair with his fingers.
"As I said, I can handle it." he said coldly. He seemed more balanced than few minutes earlier, but Matt knew exactly that he was just on to convince him to leave thim alone in fine. His voice reminded him to his dream - or hallucination, or what the hell had been that. That time Near was cruel, but now... just like a fragile, weak someone. Or someone who had already broken.
"I will take the question again, Near, and I sware, I won't go until you told the whole truth: what the hell happened here, what happened with you?" grabbed he the younger's shoulder and shaked him a bit. It was just a weak action, but it made Near collapse again. The tears were like waterfalls on his pale cheek. He suddenly tilt his bright head to Matt's shoulder.
"Please... help me..." he snivelled. "It's too strong. I don't know... how far... I could fight against... it."
Matt freezed for the unexpected action, but then he took his hand softly to the younger's back. It was a lame cuddle, but it was something and Near didn't squirm under his touch what fact terrified Matt. He hasn't ever touched him, now he could feel how weak and small he was in real. The whole imagination about Near changed in his thoughts.
"I promise, I'll help you, just tell it." he pleased. The younger tightened him a little.
"I really don' wan' it." he murmured.
"Near... I can't help you otherwise." he said and in his thought he noticed the fact that he didn't know the boy's real name. He was a mystery just like L. Matt has known everybody's true name, but not Near's and he hadn't even recognised this. He had never really cared about him. He has heard about this child prodigy, most of the cases from Mello, but he had just closed the boy's existence from his daily sight. He hadn't been enough interesting for him until now, and he has just now experienced the aftermath of his stubborn negligence. Something broke this small guy to pieces and his only protector, Mello, was gone. As Mello's best friend and only pal he should have been take care of him, but he had missed this. Near was sensitive under his cold mask, and he could now see the consequences of letting a child alone without anything protective stuff.
"I miss him so much." he whimpered. "I didn't know it, until... I didn't know how I feel... well, to tell the truth, I didn't even know at all that I am able to somehow feel."
"You like him." voiced Matt the substance of Near's loose words as he released the other.
Near started to wind his hair again thoughtfully, as his body got free from the elder's hold. "You know, it's more than a... fight between us. Or as it seems, for me, it's... more. I've never thought this earlier in real. It surprised me too." he explained gazing to the space.
"Okay. So you like Mello. It's a little bit weird, based on your same gender, but I'm not judging. Other hand, that wouldn't be the first creepy things from you and I never think that you are g-"
"Stop it!" he interrupted him and looked black to him for an endless moment.
"If you kiss me after this awkward gaze, I'll let it, but only because you are momentary upset a little, you are not my type and I hope basically, I am not yours." he gabbled quickly.
"I am not gay, you stupid!" he moaned and throwed the other with his robot what he had just a little earlier squeezed in his hands.
"You fling like a girl, Near, it didn't even hurt." he said holding the toy within his fingers. "I still don't understand your attachment such a childish manner like playing with these."
"I am thinking with them." he hissed and teared out one of his thinking tools from the other's hand, hiding it behind him just like the material earlier. His motion reminded Matt to the official topic.
"So, if I take well the puzzle, you are not gay - or according to your report, you are not -, you just now recognised, you like Mello after he went away, god-know-where-and-why, and you tried to hurt yourself because of your feelings. You are aware of your own ridiculous banality, aren't you? And in which suicidal attempt took you apart your room?" he asked then.
Near surveyed his chamber in silence. "I had a slight fit of anger."
The other begun to hiccup as note to a hold in uproarious laughter. "I doubt you had a tantrum."
"Guys…" he sighed. "Didn't you pay attention on biology? I could say right now at least four ligitimate reason why I had a right to have a tantrum. Five, counting with you." Yeah, he could have, but he just couldn't have one. - thought Matt.
"Anyway, I feel myself much better, so... you can leave, I could take ten to one, you have better and cooler things than the weird guy's affliction." he said holding his white hair between two fingers. Matt just now recognised that he used the words to describe himself as the others called him in secret, and it was much more cruel than they could tell to him it face to face. It didn't count how much Near was freakish, he just didn't deserve those cruel appellation. They were just mean to him with this. He has deserved more and he was there now to somehow retrieve. Otherwise he couldn't go now either, the boy's doings and welfare were counted to him now.
"I won't go, Near. You will hurt yourself again. And at least I'll help you tidy your room." he said to convince the younger at least with the second part of his sentence. He had exactly know that the perfect systematization meant everything to the other.
"It's not necessary. I can't predict when an other seizure will come. Thus, building up again the structures in a through of a wave is redundant. You would just waste your time with it. And I don't want to hear again the sound of collapsing, it makes me feel myself... lost. In a certain level, that was in some measure the reason why I was flipped out." admitted he.
"So, if I am reading right, you hurt yourself because your dominos fell to the ground?!" he asked stunnedly, with an incredulous tone.
"No. It was just a symphtone, and I didn't hurt myself. I'm not a creepy masochist." mumbled the white kid.
"Still I could imagine that, but put the case I believe in you... after all I saw the blood, that can't be gainsaid."
"As I said, I didn't hurt myself."
"Stop lying, Near!" he yelled to him.
"You're momentary acting like Mello." murmured he, slightly petulantly. "And I am not lying, I'm just hiding the truth."
"In this case, stop hiding it!" he moaned.
"I don't want to frighten you out." whispered the other tilting his head to his pulled up knee.
"Yes, because your current behaviour frighten me less…" he groaned.
"This is why I want you to go." he explained coldly. "But if you are sure to stay here, you might help me in something. With a sentinel, breaking into the other annex, in every aspect, would be less conspiciouos than alone. And Dr. Seymar is still out, so I don't have other choice."
"Why the hell you wanna break in the girl's side, and what kinda thing you have with Seymar, our doc is h-" he voiced but then, freezed. "Oh… Oh!" he said and slightly dragged from the small albino kid. "You really had a tantrum."
"Well, having a tantrum doesn't stereotypically typify for just one gender. At least, Mello is against this racist heterodoxy."
"Yeah, that's undoubtedly a fact." he agreed. He was exactly aware of his friend's emotional and waving behaviour. He has sometimes acting like a huffy girl. But he wasn't one... even if he seemed like someone from the weaker gender with his shoulder-length blonde hair and fringe.
"Otherwise, please don't tell it to anyone." prayed Near to him.
"I won't, I promise. But I don't see why are you hiding this."
Near took to hand the robot toy and softly squeezed it with the snow-white fingers, then started to explain everything to him. The voice was quite and serious, but this time, because they made a point for both of them.
"When we came here, we left our identities behind us and most of the people are their past too. I don't remember many of the details, I was too young, but my slight memories were enough to pretend myself differing from the beginning than revealing my real self to anyone. And with time, I get used to it. In Wammy's the past is past and it was always enough for me."
"So there is nobody who knows about it?" he recoiled.
"L suspected something like that but he didn't bring it on, he rather let it to me." Near said silently, winding a short tuft of hair thoughtfully between her fingers. She didn't look at him when she said that.
"So even the big L didn't know about it?" he sticked down to the fact, not recognising the small details that the other became a little bit closed and cold again. If even L didn't know about it, Near is far better than everybody could ever imagine it. - he thought.
"Don't call him like that way." she murmured then, squezzing angrily the robot toy within her other hand.
"Well, he is a kind of anchor, so..."
Near immediately corrected him. "Was. He was. And he doesn't deserve to talk about him that way."
"I'm sorry." he apologised, noticing in fine that L might have been a sensitive spot to her. "I know he was a kinda idol for you and Mello. He sometimes admitted that to me." Near stayed in silence for a moment, but then continued her confession to him.
"He would had been the second one whom I ever wanted to tell it. I thought he had done too much for me and I owe to him with the truth. I wanted to share with him my real identity as he had came back, but I didn't have a possibility to do it. I was so reserved and he was so busy to even render thanks to him properly. I missed the chance, so I did with Mello." she said sadly and a few tears rolled down on the pale skin.
It was heartbreaking to Matt to saw Near again crying. He wanted ease and lull her somehow but he knew that he just couldn't. As Near had said earlier, it was too strong to fight against it. It was the time for her to feel and what he could do only for the white kid to stay and be there as the only lefted person for her collapsed and twisted world. It was the time for the always cold being to speak it out from her, then undoubtedly as nothing had been happened, get back to the usual, daily restful existence.
"I always wanted to tell him it, I had just waited for the perfect time." she snivelled for the memory of the past then continued. "When Roger mentioned us L's death and the fact that he didn't choose his successor from us, Michael was so upset. I had known he would let the role to me, but I didn't expected he would go away after that. I had known being the next L was everything for him and he had to give it up for me, he had thought as everybody had expected it from he. He had thought, he wouldn't have enough smart to revenge L well and find out Kira's identity, against me. But he was wrong. He wasn't the liar for the whole time as me. I couldn't follow L to find out a lie if I was a liar too. I wanted to tell it him, I wanted to tell him everything but he was already gone. And I had no choice then. I betrayed L and I betrayed Mello and myself. And against all my hopes I must to travel soon to be him, to follow him and I don't know what to do. It's just too much and I can't back out from it, I can't do that. I can't do that to anyone. They counted to me, the whole world counted to me. And what I am momentary capable of is wailing, like that weak Natalie River who I had wanted to forget forever… damn biology." she wiped off the tears stubbornly with her long-sleeved pyjama.
Matt stayed in silence for a long, embarrasingly quite minute. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know well Near - Natalie - till that point. He couldn't handle her exceptional open attitude, he couldn't either know what she excepted from him - if she was ecxepting at all anything. He just sat foolishly next to her, but then a thought made him smile.
"After all, I finally managed to get wind of your name, N." he grinned. The small, white kid looked to him with her big grey eyes uncomprehendingly.
After a disturbing deathlike stillness a slight laugh was heard, like an angelic chuckle what slowly was growning to a real laughing.
"You really got the heart of the matter, didn't you?" she asked. Matt lifted his shoulder and hummed.
"Seriously, Near, what did you except from me?" he put the question. "I'm the nerd guy here, not a therapist one. And anyway it was a pretty lame camouflage, admit it, it wasn't even worth the money to come here." he said seriously. The silver tears reappeared again on the other's cheek, but it was this time the tears of joy. Near hiccuped as the mashed up consequence of trying to laughing and crying at the same time.
"You are creepy, stop it." he said coldly, but it just made the other upset more. After a few minutes the other wearily tilted her bright head to his shoulder and pulled him to a hug, grabbing still in her hand the robot toy.
"Thank you..." mumbled she exhaustedly.
"Not at all." whispered he and held the other tightly till she needed it.